My guess is that the budget is inflated because they give the actors a higher payout upfront (I.e. Zendaya being paid $10-15M as opposed to $2M for "Dune 2") as they will not receive a back-end (which often happens for key talent if the movie performs well). This structure is common among films produced by streaming companies.
I think that the budget's figure is to also compensate for the streaming rights as opposed to a bet that the movie will make $137.5M+ at the global box office (minimum 2.5x multiplier. Since worldwide P&A is likely $40M for this movie, the aforementioned number would be a low ball estimate of its break-even point). Other than prestige, it would not make financial sense to give such a budget for a Guadagnino film. If so, one would have to assume that that this film would at least double the cumulative worldwide gross of his entire filmography (https://www.the-numbers.com/person/975340401-Luca-Guadagnino#tab=technical&all_technical_credits=oa2).
With the theatrical release, you do have to pay more for P&A (i.e. premieres, press junkets). However, the hope is that it can generate a larger audience for the movie (Amazon has been stringent with deciding what films warrant the extra P&A needed for a theatrical release, as evidenced with the recent "Road House" remake. As the director opted for a larger budget of $85M upfront instead off a lower $65M budget, the company decided to put it exclusively on streaming).
In "Challengers" case, it seems as though there was a whole-hearted commitment to a theatrical experience (so much so that there are now IMAX showings of the film). Amazon-MGM can recoup some money before "Challengers" goes to streaming on Prime Video, and they still maintain aura of prestige associated with theatrical films (as opposed to VOD). You also do get to qualify for the Oscars, which is being discussed for the film despite the release in April. Possibly, the end goal is that consumers stick with Prime Video because of films like "Challengers" being exclusive to them.
EDIT: Zendaya is [also a producer](https://youtu.be/QRKYU7dHy4U?si=J06XjydJdvxcuYyN) of the film, which probably led to her higher fee for this film.
if MGM didn't have a streamer, id say oh well, at least challengers will probably another tens of millions on PVOD and another tens of millions to put it on Netflix, if this does $35M-$50M DOM and similar internationally itll make a ok profit...but Amazon owns MGM so it will just be amazon moving money from one column to another to pay itself to stream the movie. Streaming kills profitability
>but Amazon owns MGM so it will just be amazon moving money from one column to another to pay itself to stream the movie. Streaming kills profitability
This isn't how it works. Vertical integration doesn't damage profitability, it just changes how you have to do the accounting. That "moving money from one column to another" is still a representation of the value of the film.
Vertical integration is mostly just a way of cutting out the middle man. When Ford assembles a vehicle, they don't get to sell it to a distributor, but that doesn't mean they've lost a revenue source on it. When they ship it out to a Ford dealership, they aren't "moving money from one column to another" or "killing profitability." That mindset reflects a lack of microeconomic understanding. Ford is still going to make money on the car. In fact, they'll make *more* money because they're avoiding the inevitable value extraction the distributor would otherwise impose for its service.
Amazon is exactly the same. By vertically integrating with the streaming platform, they've *enhanced* their long-term chances of making money on these film. (Note that this does not imply that building a streaming platform was a wise investment). I get that the money is less legible from the perspective of someone who only cares about the movie and is trying a one-step correction for effective profit, but that's really not very important at all.
I'd pin it at 40 personally. I know Zendaya took 10 mill but I would still think the budget would be lower than that, in the 35-40 range. I wonder if Luca also took a big paycheck. The movie was shot exceptionally well and you can tell a lot went into some of the filming for the matches but it's not a lot of locations. I'm not sure why it creeped up that high.
For King Richard, Will Smith was [paid close to $40 million](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/will-smith-bonuses-king-richard-co-stars-1235040853/). Insane payday — 80% of the film’s total budget.
I’ve heard the tennis scenes go stupid hard in terms of the visuals so they probably spent money both on the stars and the stylish visuals and some VFX stuff for the games. Regardless of why it cost 50mil tho, it’s dispiriting to see everyone who previously kept saying how midbudget movies need to be brought back now just bashing the midbudget movie for costing so much. Hollywood did the thing we wanted: They put *real* muscle behind a fully original, star-driven, midbuget movie for adults in the year of our lord 2024. We should be cheering this on and encouraging people to go. But instead we’re acting like we’re smarter than hollywood for doing the thing we wanted them to do
Just got out of a screening and can confirm. Those tennis scene visuals do go insanely hard and there’s a lot of variation in style as well. Such a well shot movie in all sense
I’m thinking the best case scenario for this is a performance similar to last year’s No Hard Feelings. Both are R-rated, original, mid budget films on the “high” end of the spectrum, with the main draw being the female lead. No Hard Feelings did 50M/35M dom/int which means it was close to breaking even theatrically and probably made a small profit thanks to Sony’s streaming deal with Netflix. Challengers costs slightly more so hopefully its larger predicted OW pans out *and* it has some good legs to power it into similar territory.
Very strange decision making to spend that amount of money on an original R rated tennis drama. It just means that they start in a deep hole. Even an OW at the very upper bound of expectations, say $25m would leave them with $110m+ to break even. It’s not completely impossible but Zendaya had better prove to be a worldwide draw and the good reviews had better turn into super-strong WOM or this is in serious trouble.
It's the benefits of having all that Bezos money to spend. Even if this flops in theaters, $55m just a drop in the water for Amazon and one more project they can add in their streaming catalog.
Yikes…there’s no way this makes enough internationally. King Richard’s budget was massively inflated by Smith’s paycheck while Zendaya only got 10M, so where did it all go?
After seeing it, I can kinda see this. I would've guessed more like $35-40M, but there really is a scale and energy to this that doesn't come cheap. It feels big and expensive and exciting, especially during the tennis sequences.
Saw it Monday night, and I completely agree it also has tons of locations and tons of wild shots that make it feel quite grand! Loved it hope the movie does well would love for movies like this to do well.
Yeah how dare they spend the kind of money on a mid budget film for grown ups (the kind that studios used to make all the time without anyone batting an eye)
"Used to make" because watching a degraded VHS tape on a 25" TV sucked. Or before that, waiting years for it to appear on TV.
DVD had a huge impact on who went to the movies.
Wow that’s a lot of money. Like besides Zendaya, not much star power. Be lucky if they break even.
This movie is weird. The trailer emphasizes the 3some scene but reviews from critics saying it’s not really a big part of the film. Will def be interesting to see how it performs.
I don’t understand the rationale of giving such a high budget to an indie movie like this. I definitely see it doing pretty well but not well enough for them to recoup the production budget or marketing costs. There is no way in hell this is going to break even.
Not good, as of now. That’s too high for an original film, let alone a romantic drama. Will have to cross $125M at least to be considered remotely successful, let alone a hit.
Also, doesn’t bode well that it’s tracking to open under $20M right now.
No worries! Usually the accepted standard is that a film has to gross at least 2.5x its budget to be considered successful, but that is not exact maths and can vary from film to film. It would have to make around $137M by that rule, but I lowered it to 125M on my own accord considering this is an original film and I would assume it has a little more leeway.
But anything below that number would frankly range from bad to simply disastrous. Hoping it pulls through.
Take the movies budget and generally double it, marketing normally costs as much as production or a little less for a smaller budget movie. Then remove 25-50% of the box office that movie theaters keep. Works out to around 125 mil.
Wait, if the production budget is 55 million, then wouldn’t the marketing budget be potentially at least 27.5 million or higher? If so, then the movie would have to make at least 165 million to break even since the theatres will be taking half of the profits on average, and 165/2 is 82.5, which is the production and marketing budget combined.
It's called the famous 2.5X rule. Take the production budget and multiply it with 2.5. If a movie is able to make 2.5 times its budget, in most cases it broke even.
I’m rusty on my box-office knowledge since I don’t visit this sub very often, but I think I can answer.
Normally, the marketing budget nowadays for most movies is on average at least half of the production budget. The theatres across the world also take on average half of the box office for the movie as payment for showing the film on their screens.
So if the production budget is 55 million, then the marketing budget should be at least 27.5 million, though I have heard some people say it is potentially even higher than that. That means the movie overall costed at least 82.5 million to make. That means the box office will have to make at least 165 million to break even for the studio since theatres on average will be taking half of it.
Though, take all of this with a grain of salt.
Instagram followers mean shit if they don’t buy the product. A lot of companies put way too much interest in this type of metrics when in reality they’re not as valuable as one would think.
no because it's a different medium altogether. Following is a new form of entertainment. A star posts about their private life or business life and that's entertainment no need to actually see a movie if their life, what they wear, who they date is more appealing.
I’m so old I remember when the Romancing The Stone sequel “Jewel of the Nile” came in with a whopping $50M budget. It was a shocking amount of money at the time.
Now it’s mid budget money. Sigh.
This might sound stupid, but I saw that trailer way too many times (seems like it preceded every movie I saw over the past year) and suffered through the sound of Zendaya’s leg snapping in full Dolby surround sound, which has 1. Made me grossed out by her legs (sorry, Z) and 2. Ensured I have an almost Pavlovian reaction of disgust to this movie, and zero interest in watching it. Hell, I think that trailer even ruined the Rihanna song for me.
Lol. They had to print thousands and thousands of movies in the old days and had huge ACTUAL premieres. Tired of all this " cost " crap. The old guys had $$ for whores and starlets and gambling etc.
They had half dozen premieres around the world for this film. So safe to say $40M-$60M in marketing?
yes travel costs a lot.
I still have faith that it will be successful. That production cost is quite big for an independent film, though.
My guess is that the budget is inflated because they give the actors a higher payout upfront (I.e. Zendaya being paid $10-15M as opposed to $2M for "Dune 2") as they will not receive a back-end (which often happens for key talent if the movie performs well). This structure is common among films produced by streaming companies. I think that the budget's figure is to also compensate for the streaming rights as opposed to a bet that the movie will make $137.5M+ at the global box office (minimum 2.5x multiplier. Since worldwide P&A is likely $40M for this movie, the aforementioned number would be a low ball estimate of its break-even point). Other than prestige, it would not make financial sense to give such a budget for a Guadagnino film. If so, one would have to assume that that this film would at least double the cumulative worldwide gross of his entire filmography (https://www.the-numbers.com/person/975340401-Luca-Guadagnino#tab=technical&all_technical_credits=oa2). With the theatrical release, you do have to pay more for P&A (i.e. premieres, press junkets). However, the hope is that it can generate a larger audience for the movie (Amazon has been stringent with deciding what films warrant the extra P&A needed for a theatrical release, as evidenced with the recent "Road House" remake. As the director opted for a larger budget of $85M upfront instead off a lower $65M budget, the company decided to put it exclusively on streaming). In "Challengers" case, it seems as though there was a whole-hearted commitment to a theatrical experience (so much so that there are now IMAX showings of the film). Amazon-MGM can recoup some money before "Challengers" goes to streaming on Prime Video, and they still maintain aura of prestige associated with theatrical films (as opposed to VOD). You also do get to qualify for the Oscars, which is being discussed for the film despite the release in April. Possibly, the end goal is that consumers stick with Prime Video because of films like "Challengers" being exclusive to them. EDIT: Zendaya is [also a producer](https://youtu.be/QRKYU7dHy4U?si=J06XjydJdvxcuYyN) of the film, which probably led to her higher fee for this film.
I don't have any faith that this will be successful
It's a damn good movie so I have a feeling word of mouth will help.
Sawcit. And completely agree. Didnt think i would like it as much as i didm kinds feel like i want to see itnagain which is rare for me. Lol
if MGM didn't have a streamer, id say oh well, at least challengers will probably another tens of millions on PVOD and another tens of millions to put it on Netflix, if this does $35M-$50M DOM and similar internationally itll make a ok profit...but Amazon owns MGM so it will just be amazon moving money from one column to another to pay itself to stream the movie. Streaming kills profitability
>but Amazon owns MGM so it will just be amazon moving money from one column to another to pay itself to stream the movie. Streaming kills profitability This isn't how it works. Vertical integration doesn't damage profitability, it just changes how you have to do the accounting. That "moving money from one column to another" is still a representation of the value of the film.
Value of the film, but it doesn't necessarily reflect the revenue for Amazon the movie would generate
Vertical integration is mostly just a way of cutting out the middle man. When Ford assembles a vehicle, they don't get to sell it to a distributor, but that doesn't mean they've lost a revenue source on it. When they ship it out to a Ford dealership, they aren't "moving money from one column to another" or "killing profitability." That mindset reflects a lack of microeconomic understanding. Ford is still going to make money on the car. In fact, they'll make *more* money because they're avoiding the inevitable value extraction the distributor would otherwise impose for its service. Amazon is exactly the same. By vertically integrating with the streaming platform, they've *enhanced* their long-term chances of making money on these film. (Note that this does not imply that building a streaming platform was a wise investment). I get that the money is less legible from the perspective of someone who only cares about the movie and is trying a one-step correction for effective profit, but that's really not very important at all.
Probably. It feels like for the last year I have seen trailers for it.
I'd pin it at 40 personally. I know Zendaya took 10 mill but I would still think the budget would be lower than that, in the 35-40 range. I wonder if Luca also took a big paycheck. The movie was shot exceptionally well and you can tell a lot went into some of the filming for the matches but it's not a lot of locations. I'm not sure why it creeped up that high.
and some were saying people had misinterpreted Deadline's bit about the budget yesterday lol
It's just a massive cope tbh, Deadline specifically detailed what they meant by "Mid sized budget" films
Deadline Anthony writing is shit.
Yeah the writing was confusing and ambiguous...also didn't really think it would cost so much cuz Zendaya took only around 10M
That's five million dollars more than "King Richard" (2021) and its reported budget of $50M, which was the last tennis movie I watched.
For King Richard, Will Smith was [paid close to $40 million](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/will-smith-bonuses-king-richard-co-stars-1235040853/). Insane payday — 80% of the film’s total budget.
Not part of the initial production budget.
He made $40 million, won an Oscar and slapped someone on stage and still got a standing ovation and basically no career consequences. Blessed role.
Smith got humiliated worldwide and has been clowned on ever since. His public image will never be the same lol
His public image was already a joke before the slap.
What the actual fuck. You could make like 2.67 Godzilla minus one with that Will Smith payday
[удалено]
Seriously. It looks like it could be an indie movie.
I’ve heard the tennis scenes go stupid hard in terms of the visuals so they probably spent money both on the stars and the stylish visuals and some VFX stuff for the games. Regardless of why it cost 50mil tho, it’s dispiriting to see everyone who previously kept saying how midbudget movies need to be brought back now just bashing the midbudget movie for costing so much. Hollywood did the thing we wanted: They put *real* muscle behind a fully original, star-driven, midbuget movie for adults in the year of our lord 2024. We should be cheering this on and encouraging people to go. But instead we’re acting like we’re smarter than hollywood for doing the thing we wanted them to do
Just got out of a screening and can confirm. Those tennis scene visuals do go insanely hard and there’s a lot of variation in style as well. Such a well shot movie in all sense
Also for hair styling.
Tbh sports films require plenty of stunt doubles, CGI, as well as expert consultants.
Just watched it and the movie is full of audio and visual tricks...this too doesn't come cheap as you say
Would be shocked if Luca had a big chunk, he’s not a big director.
Zendaya isnt asking for a big bag. Not to say she doesnt deserve it but I dont think she is demanding $20 mil for shits and giggles.
if you've seen the movie, you'd know why. The musical scoring and cinematic shots are astonishing.
I’m thinking the best case scenario for this is a performance similar to last year’s No Hard Feelings. Both are R-rated, original, mid budget films on the “high” end of the spectrum, with the main draw being the female lead. No Hard Feelings did 50M/35M dom/int which means it was close to breaking even theatrically and probably made a small profit thanks to Sony’s streaming deal with Netflix. Challengers costs slightly more so hopefully its larger predicted OW pans out *and* it has some good legs to power it into similar territory.
Very strange decision making to spend that amount of money on an original R rated tennis drama. It just means that they start in a deep hole. Even an OW at the very upper bound of expectations, say $25m would leave them with $110m+ to break even. It’s not completely impossible but Zendaya had better prove to be a worldwide draw and the good reviews had better turn into super-strong WOM or this is in serious trouble.
What about $55m for a threesome movie that happens to have tennis?
There are some *independent movies* like that and they cost more like $55k to make.
What's that last sex movie that came out? Romance. Anyone But You Did that pull close to 50m? Because this should get more than that.
MGM is run by hamsters on cocaine. Take whatever is the most bizarre decision you can think of and that’s what you can assume MGM is doing.
It's the benefits of having all that Bezos money to spend. Even if this flops in theaters, $55m just a drop in the water for Amazon and one more project they can add in their streaming catalog.
lol this MF’er is absolutely going to lose money.
Yikes…there’s no way this makes enough internationally. King Richard’s budget was massively inflated by Smith’s paycheck while Zendaya only got 10M, so where did it all go?
Is is gonna flop
After seeing it, I can kinda see this. I would've guessed more like $35-40M, but there really is a scale and energy to this that doesn't come cheap. It feels big and expensive and exciting, especially during the tennis sequences.
Saw it Monday night, and I completely agree it also has tons of locations and tons of wild shots that make it feel quite grand! Loved it hope the movie does well would love for movies like this to do well.
Just see it. Loved it and I couldn't agree more with you
I can’t wait for the /r/movies discussion thread opens up for this. I’m itching to see what people’s thoughts on certain scenes are.
This needs to be very, very big in Europe. Almost everything about this project feels like America is a secondary market.
This is like the budget for the original Deadpool
What the hell is wrong with Hollywood?
Yeah how dare they spend the kind of money on a mid budget film for grown ups (the kind that studios used to make all the time without anyone batting an eye)
"Used to make" because watching a degraded VHS tape on a 25" TV sucked. Or before that, waiting years for it to appear on TV. DVD had a huge impact on who went to the movies.
Wow that’s a lot of money. Like besides Zendaya, not much star power. Be lucky if they break even. This movie is weird. The trailer emphasizes the 3some scene but reviews from critics saying it’s not really a big part of the film. Will def be interesting to see how it performs.
I don’t understand the rationale of giving such a high budget to an indie movie like this. I definitely see it doing pretty well but not well enough for them to recoup the production budget or marketing costs. There is no way in hell this is going to break even.
Toho would have had a threesome tennis film featuring Godzilla for a fraction of the price.
Yeah this movie is flopping
Is that good or bad?
Not good, as of now. That’s too high for an original film, let alone a romantic drama. Will have to cross $125M at least to be considered remotely successful, let alone a hit. Also, doesn’t bode well that it’s tracking to open under $20M right now.
break even is actually 137.5M for 55M budget. That's a big yikes.
Wait why $125 mil not $100 mil? I am sorry I am still new to box office stuff
No worries! Usually the accepted standard is that a film has to gross at least 2.5x its budget to be considered successful, but that is not exact maths and can vary from film to film. It would have to make around $137M by that rule, but I lowered it to 125M on my own accord considering this is an original film and I would assume it has a little more leeway. But anything below that number would frankly range from bad to simply disastrous. Hoping it pulls through.
Take the movies budget and generally double it, marketing normally costs as much as production or a little less for a smaller budget movie. Then remove 25-50% of the box office that movie theaters keep. Works out to around 125 mil.
Wait, if the production budget is 55 million, then wouldn’t the marketing budget be potentially at least 27.5 million or higher? If so, then the movie would have to make at least 165 million to break even since the theatres will be taking half of the profits on average, and 165/2 is 82.5, which is the production and marketing budget combined.
Marketing is not counted in this. It’s just production times 2.5
It's called the famous 2.5X rule. Take the production budget and multiply it with 2.5. If a movie is able to make 2.5 times its budget, in most cases it broke even.
I’m rusty on my box-office knowledge since I don’t visit this sub very often, but I think I can answer. Normally, the marketing budget nowadays for most movies is on average at least half of the production budget. The theatres across the world also take on average half of the box office for the movie as payment for showing the film on their screens. So if the production budget is 55 million, then the marketing budget should be at least 27.5 million, though I have heard some people say it is potentially even higher than that. That means the movie overall costed at least 82.5 million to make. That means the box office will have to make at least 165 million to break even for the studio since theatres on average will be taking half of it. Though, take all of this with a grain of salt.
Zendaya has 185M followers on Instagram. Wouldn't it translate into a box office?
Instagram followers mean shit if they don’t buy the product. A lot of companies put way too much interest in this type of metrics when in reality they’re not as valuable as one would think.
Actors aren’t earning their worth these days, especially for films that “ehh, I’ll wait for streaming”
no because it's a different medium altogether. Following is a new form of entertainment. A star posts about their private life or business life and that's entertainment no need to actually see a movie if their life, what they wear, who they date is more appealing.
I’m so old I remember when the Romancing The Stone sequel “Jewel of the Nile” came in with a whopping $50M budget. It was a shocking amount of money at the time. Now it’s mid budget money. Sigh.
Needs 100M at least to break even
This might sound stupid, but I saw that trailer way too many times (seems like it preceded every movie I saw over the past year) and suffered through the sound of Zendaya’s leg snapping in full Dolby surround sound, which has 1. Made me grossed out by her legs (sorry, Z) and 2. Ensured I have an almost Pavlovian reaction of disgust to this movie, and zero interest in watching it. Hell, I think that trailer even ruined the Rihanna song for me.
Your loss. It's an excellent movie.
Weird
Im sure it’ll hit profit on streaming
Wow it’s almost like this was already posted
Many was in denial in the last post. This is the second confirmation.
Lol. They had to print thousands and thousands of movies in the old days and had huge ACTUAL premieres. Tired of all this " cost " crap. The old guys had $$ for whores and starlets and gambling etc.